Police: Man drunk, driving over 100 mph in fatal Whitehall crash
A Pleasant Hills man was driving at 101 mph and with a blood alcohol content more than two times the legal limit when he crashed his car on Brownsville Road in December, killing his girlfriend, Whitehall police said.
Whitehall police charged Tyler Jesse DeGraffenreid, 24, Sunday with homicide by vehicle while driving under the influence, homicide by vehicle, involuntary manslaughter, and other charges in connection with the Dec. 15 crash.
The crash happened shortly before 10:30 p.m. in the 4600 block of Brownsville Road. Police found the car DeGraffenreid had been driving on its roof in a yard. The car had been driven through yards, driveways and rock beds. It hit a telephone pole before going airborne and into a barrel roll.
Whitehall police said they found DeGraffenreid still belted into the driver’s seat and suspended upside down, according to a criminal complaint filed in the case. He freed himself, and an officer pulled him out the rear window.
DeGraffenreid told police his girlfriend had been in the car with him, but that he could not find her. Police determined the woman, Victoria Rose Verscharen, 23, of Baldwin, had not been wearing a seat belt and was thrown from the front passenger seat through the moon roof of the Honda Accord and into the corner of a house, killing her.
Police said they detected a strong odor of alcohol from DeGraffenreid. His blood was later analyzed at the Allegheny County Crime Lab, where it tested positive for alcohol with a reading of 0.205; the legal limit to drive in Pennsylvania is 0.08.
Police said DeGraffenreid admitted to having smoked marijuana earlier that day and consuming numerous beers and several shots of whiskey over nine hours.
DeGraffenreid allegedly admitted to police that he had been driving too fast and recklessly. He claimed the crash happened because he mistakenly pressed the gas pedal instead of the brake when a cat or raccoon ran in front of the car at a bend in the road, police said.
DeGraffenreid was denied bail during a preliminary arraignment early Monday morning.
A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Jan. 31.
Brian C. Rittmeyer, a Pittsburgh native and graduate of Penn State University's Schreyer Honors College, has been with the Trib since December 2000. He can be reached at brittmeyer@triblive.com.
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